This afternoon I was using a new 223AI modified case gauge that I had a guy make for me to check OAL to lands in my 223AI. I slipped a 80gr A-Max into the case, pushed it into the lands with fairly little pressure, cinched it down and removed the length gauge. Now in doing this, the bullet was staying stuck in the lands, so I had been using a small dowel rod to simply drop in the barrel and knock the bullet out; it had worked like a champ in my 260 and never had issues before with the 223AI.

The 80gr A-Max did not drop free.

Stupid me didn't stop and take a breath, but rather got the dowel rod out of the barrel and proceeded to drop my Tipton cleaning rod in...still no dice. I then started to hit the Tipton rod with a small piece of 2x4...that didn't work so I started the push/pull method at which point the Tipton rod broke right at the muzzle.

So...I've got an 80gr A-Max stuck in lands and a broke-off Tipton rod stuck in the rest.

Is there a gunsmith out there that can un-fark my situation and salvage the barrel? I can obviously spin the barrel off the action to send it out...just hoping my dumbass tax doesn't go all the way to the cost of a new barrel.